Whether you are in the construction or manufacturing business, heavy machinery is your most expensive equipment. Consequently, the equipment can be costly to repair or replace. To avoid incurring the cost, it would be best to carry out regular maintenance. Through preventive maintenance, you can predict problems and get a solution before they cause any harm. Some of the services included in a preventative maintenance program include failure analysis, condition monitoring, and specialized repair tooling and equipment.
Decreased Downtime
Some equipment might be significant to an entire company’s operations. Therefore, even the shortest breakdown could lead to huge losses. Such failures can be avoided through regular maintenance, helping the systems always stay in working conditions.
Increased Life Expectancy
Maintenance protects heavy equipment from wear and tear, as well as regular replacement of crucial parts. Therefore, the machines can offer superior services for a long time, maintaining high profits.
Quality Control
Quality control is essential in any business. Construction and manufacturing are not any different. However, working with faulty equipment can lead to mediocre products. Not only can that hurt your brand, but you can also incur hefty fines.
Employee Safety
Although accidents are bound to happen, well-maintained equipment is less likely to cause them. Failure to maintain them can lead to fatal work-related accidents, leading to employee compensation. It can also lower employees’ confidence, which in turn decreases their productivity.
Top Heavy Equipment Maintenance Tips
1. Commitment to a Program
Don’t wait until a breakdown to call a technician. Instead, have a preventive maintenance program and adhere to it. Through the program, a technician can anticipate any failures preventing disruption of business. Besides, a preventative maintenance program can ensure that your equipment retains high resale value. For optimal results, have a program from purchasing the equipment until the end of its use.
2. Thorough Product Knowledge
It would be best if you knew your machinery inside out. After buying, take some time to go through the manual. In most cases, manuals contain vital information, such as the best products to use and necessary troubleshooting information.
Besides the manual, get information from the machine operators from time to time. Since they spend the most time with the equipment, they are more likely to know when something is wrong. Once you suspect a problem, it would be best to stop the operation and get it fixed.
3. Stick to Factory-Recommended Maintenance Schedule
In the equipment manual, you will find recommendations from the manufacturer. To keep your equipment in optimum condition, follow the schedule. However, you can adjust the intervals depending on specific conditions such as climate and operator load. Besides, following these specifications protects your warranty.
4. Operator Training
One of the best ways to maintain heavy equipment is to use them the right way. To avoid unnecessary wear and tear on equipment, ensure that all operators are adequately trained. Apart from knowing how to handle the equipment, operators need to know basic maintenance tasks. Besides, the training also helps the workers remain safe at the workplace.
5. Proper Documentation
No matter how devoted you are to your job, you might lose track of previous maintenance services. For instance, you might forget the parts replaced with ones replaced a while. To prevent such problems, it would be best to keep organized records of previous maintenance sessions.
Besides using the records to determine which parts need maintenance, they can also prove following the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule. Therefore, you can retrieve them when going after the equipment’s warranty. Notably, you can either maintain the records manually or electronically.
Heavy Equipment Maintenance Checklist
For easy maintenance records, you can invest in a heavy equipment maintenance checklist. With the checklist, all you need to do is to tick against a task once completed. With the least, it becomes so easy to plan future maintenance tasks. For instance, you get adequate time to prepare for tasks that require outsourcing.
